Moon Shines in Darkness
by The Necromantic
Summary: The first of the originals and the first of the neophytes, because every good dark night is improved with a little moonlight. How Saïx became the lackey he is. XemSaï.


Title: Moon Shines in Darkness  
Fandom: KH2  
Rating: PG  
Word count: 1403  
Disclaimer: Disney, Square Enix, and Nomura own EVERYTHING. Well, not everything in the world. But everything in this fic. I don't make any money off of this, either, while we're at it.

Warnings: I dunno. Emotional weirdness. Implied slash, but it's all tame as anything. :/ sry.

Vexen found it. Zexion identified it. Xemnas, though, is the first to acknowledge it. He has always had to be the first of them. He gave his heart to the darkness, while they lost theirs. The specifics matter to Xemnas, the distinction between acts of freewill and those of fate. That the creature has been so unceremoniously dropped into their ranks is fate, but how they treat him is a matter of their free agency.

"Have you pulled yourself together?" Xemnas asks, selecting his words carefully.

"Where am I?" the creature asks. It's voice is quite calm and sedate. It displays curiousity, sentience. After this, they will need a selection of qualifying criteria. First on the list: no heart. Second: not a heartless. Third: humanoid.

In the dark, its skin is luminous.

"What is your name?" Xemnas asks.

"It was," the creature closes its eyes against the intruding light.

"It was Ïsa," he, it is a 'he,' says.

"Was?" Xemnas questions.

"I," and then he amazes Xemnas with his self-consciousness. "Am not Ïsa."

He already knows that not all of them are so accepting of this transition, from what they 'were' to what they 'are.' Vexen was rather unwilling to give up on Even, though he caved to the mounting evidence. Especially after they had eliminated the hulking ice beast that had formed when Vexen's heart was devoured by the Darkness. So funny that they call them Heartless when evidence shows they can hold upwards of seventeen hearts at a time. They feed on them, and anything else that gives off light and is assigned emotional value. Only the Nobodies, like them, are saved from losing their money and spells to Heartless.

"No," Xemnas agrees. "You do not have a name. Do you want one?"

"I," the man who was Ïsa is pausing for thought. "I do, but I do not."

"Very well," Xemnas says and he calls up glowing letters that spell out Ïsa's name. And an X, brighter and more intricate than the other letters. The a floats ahead of the ï and then the s abandons them for the beginning.

"Does that look correct to you?" Xemnas asks.

"Yes," he is tentative. "It does."

"Saïx," Xemnas greets him with an extended hand. "I want to personally welcome you to the Organization. My name is Xemnas."

"But it wasn't always," Saïx answers, not taking his hand. Xemnas intuits that he doesn't know how to shake hands. Like a dog, that will be one of the first things Xemnas teachs him as he takes his bare, pale hand and shakes it up and down twice. Saïx is a quick learner.

"No," Xemnas agrees. "You are very intelligent."

"Thank you."

The others are very suspicious of Saïx. Vexen coins the term 'neophyte' and it is an insult as well as a name. But in this world, Saïx is always calm and poised. It isn't until Xemnas has to take him off world, and only at night. Then on the open plains of the Sahara with the full moon shining down on him, Saïx glows and his eyes are full of magic. He growls and speaks in tongues. Xemnas is not afraid, though he tears hyenas asunder.

That is when he calls his weapon, and attempts to turn it on Xemnas.

Rather than fight the man, Xemnas just blots out the moon. Saïx calms and the last of the moonlight drips off of his gloved hands like shining water.

"I'm sorry," Saïx gasps, realizing he was moments from smashing his claymore into Xemnas' face.

"What is it?" Xemnas asks.

"A claymore," Saïx says. At the moment is has a web of spines jutting out, they come down and indeed, it looks like a massive sword.

Xemnas smiles at him, Saïx smiles back.

"Impossible," Vexen says. He is very resistant to believing in the neophyte's possibility. He only grudgingly is willing ot look for others, though Xemnas knows they exist and may be living among Somebodies as if they were not what they are. Ïsa is obviously from a place rich in snow and ice, but Xemnas can imagine that it is not the Himalayas.

Then they find Ale. He is living on the streets in Agrabah. Xemnas can only guess from his observations that Ale and Ïsa's worlds have been totally destroyed by heartless. Xemnas assigns Axel's care to Xigbar, because he still has his hands full with Saïx.

Xigbar presents the young man before the whole of them, arranged in a room that created itself. It always has the right amount of towering seats for them, reachable only through the corridors. A day ago, an eighth seat appeared. Xemnas can already see that Vexen dislikes this neophyte even less than Saïx.

"There will be thirteen," Saïx wakes from a dream. Xemnas is using the darkness to shape the hearts that have begun appearing. They are forming a portal to Kingdom Hearts. He shapes them into a moon on the unending night sky. In the distance, the stray hearts look like stars. There are more of them everyday. More Heartless. More Heartless killed. More Hearts appearing in the sky over The World That Never Was.

Saïx learns to control himself. His visions appear only in his dreams and he can sap power from the moonlight and save it for other places, even use it during the highest noon in the most ordinary city to take down a smog breathing heartless of a monster.

When the first bezerker appears, Xemnas assigns Saïx a legion. There are fewer of them and spikey crawling creatures prone to explosive ends appear, which are dubbed Assasins for their tendency to latch onto things and then explode, to lurk in shadows and lash out with their tendrils and strangle their victims. They have some kind of bloodlust and they are the first lessers who lie. Xemnas gives them to Axel, because there is no one else to give them too.

Then they find Demyx. Xemnas smiles.

"Am I," Saïx looks uneasy. "Am I being replaced?"

"Of course not," Xemnas says.

He remembers a little redheaded girl adopted by their eccentric leader. He always had a softspot for orphans, he hears people say. Everyone else takes quickly to her, but Xehanort is uneasy with his 'sister.' She is very young, but it feels like she can see right through him. She is not old enough to even fully understand that there are three parts to every person, two mortal parts and one immortal part. She does not understand, but when he is forced to dance with her at events and everyone coos about how cute they are together, she looks right at him.

Xemnas knows that Saïx has stronger memories of feeling than he does. He acts on impulse at times and he has anger. Xemnas does not even have anger anymore. Saïx shows signs of resentment and jealousy, as well as disappointment and something that looks like hope, but cannot possibly be hope. Nothing without a heart can hope.

Though, if Xemnas could still wish for things, hope would be one of the first.

"Come here," he orders. And by here, he knows that Saïx understands he is talking about his personal chambers. They are dark and the stored moonlight makes Saïx light up the room. Sharp edged geometric shapes turn into flowing curls, there is a Doric column thrown in here and there. One is broken. There is no bed, no bath, no tables. There is one seat, a hulking, towering thing, and Xemnas is seated in it when Saïx enters.

"Superior," Saïx acknowledges him. "Xemnas."

"Diviner," Xemnas replies. "Saïx."

In the darkness Xemnas moves from his high seat to the space just behind Saïx. He reaches out and puts his hand on the man's shoulder. The moonlight that Saïx has brought with him shudders.

After that, words are pointless. Xemnas has observed and made his hypothesis. Saïx is comforted when Xemnas takes off his gloves and allows him to run his bare hands through his winter sky at high noon colored hair. Xemnas' skin looks even darker when it is against Saïx glowing pale skin. Xemans takes off his coat, then the shirt and scarf underneath it. Saïx touches him with what Xemnas remembers as 'reverence.'

"You do not have to do this," Saïx tells him.

"But I choose to," he answers. And so that's how it is.


End file.
